OXFORD — Bancroft Contracting has wrapped up installation of the western fish gate, the third and final gate to be replaced, in Thompson Lake dam at the old Robinson Woolen Mill.

The Select Board approved hiring Bancroft for the project at its May 15 business meeting, at a cost of $18,350.

The project is being paid for with funds from the Thompson Lake Reserve Account.

“We’ve trying to get the work done for the last three or four years but was unable to find a qualified contractor with the time to do it,” Town Manager Adam Garland told the Select Board during a business meeting last month. “The project includes a boom truck, divers and other personnel.”

Adding the fish screen is one of the final pieces of rebuilding the dam over the last five years. In 2020 Bancroft replaced damaged stop logs, installed an electronically operated sluice on the eastern gate, and reinforced the original dam wall with concrete.

A second sluice was installed the following year with assistance from divers with the Maine Department of Fisheries & Wildlife.

Jim Skinner, a Thompson Lake resident, attended the meeting to talk about too-high water levels on the lake, which he hopes replacing the third gate will alleviate. He advised the board that the town has waited too long this spring to lower the water level and needs to more proactively manage it.

“I’ve done maybe 10 site visits” to the dam, Skinner told the board. “On May 1 I called the town about the level being three inches too high, with a storm on the way. We had an onslaught of water. I’ve talked to 20-30 people who are very worried about their property.”

Skinner said water has risen into people’s yards, causing erosion around trees and threatening to drown them.

“I hope the dam will be managed more effectively than it has over the last four years since it was partially rebuilt,” he told Garland and selectmen. He posted that ME IF&W may have wanted to keep the center gate higher to accommodate spawning salmon but said storms have added more water is being allowed to exit through the dam.

“Can we make a way to let the water out more quickly?” he asked. “Putting in the fish screen will help. But the east gate can’t let everything out and the west gate only has four slots.”

He also said that releasing more water ahead of rainstorms will help maintain an overall appropriate level and save the dam from being compromised or failing.

Garland explained that without a qualified contractor available work on the third gate it could not be completed until now and added that rebuilding the retaining wall along the outlet will be the next major rehabilitation project.

“We have been putting money aside and are working with Pine Tree Engineering to survey and design its replacement, and estimate the costs,” Garland said.

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